It would be “a slap in the face” to Americans if President Obama moves forward with executive amnesty, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) warned Wednesday.
“The latest indications that you will take executive action on immigration later this week are a slap in the face to the American people and the Constitution,” the chairmen wrote in a letter to Obama Wednesday, noting Democrats’ recent defeat in the midterm elections and polls showing Americans oppose executive actions on immigration.
Reports indicate that Obama will announce his executive actions on immigration as soon as Thursday, and Republicans are currently working on ways to combat what they expect to be his unconstitutional actions.
Goodlatte and McCaul — whose committees oversee immigration law and border security, respectively — stressed to Obama that should he move forward, his actions would exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.
“In the past, we have seen the surge in illegal immigration that comes when amnesty is promised and the enforcement of our immigration laws is ignored. With more than 11 million unlawful immigrants already in the United States, the answer to our immigration crisis is not to invite more illegal immigration,” the chairmen wrote.
The pair further argued that circumventing Congress to change laws is not constitutional, and called on Obama to abandon his plans for unilateral action on immigration to work with Congress.
“Instead of proceeding with ill-advised executive action, we implore you to work with Congress to enact legislation to address our broken immigration system. We strongly urge you to respect the Constitution and abandon any unconstitutional, unilateral executive actions on immigration,” they wrote, going on to call on Obama to work with them to secure the border and work on interior enforcement of immigration law.
Without a cooperative effort from Obama however, the two chairmen warned they would “be forced to use the tools afforded to Congress by the Constitution to stop your administration from successfully carrying out your plan.”